Attitude Sensing Using a GPS Antenna on a Turntable: Experimental Tests

A prototype of a new attitude sensor, one that uses a single GPS antenna mounted on a rotating turntable, is developed, and the accuracy of this system is evaluated using real data. The goal of this study is to experimentally validate this new concept. The new attitude sensor measures attitude by using the sinusoidal phase modulation of the GPS carrier signal that is caused by turntable rotation. The main components of the prototype are a turntable, a GPS antenna mounted off‐axis on the turntable, an angle encoder, a GPS bit‐grabber card, and a software receiver. Data from this system are processed using three alternative attitude estimation algorithms. The new sensor system has been demonstrated to work in practice, and its peak attitude error is between 0.4 and 1.9 deg for a 15 cm antenna mounting radius and a rotation rate of 1000 rpm.